Adolf Hitler & Nazism.

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Re: Adolf Hitler & Nazism.

Post by nosaj »

One thing I think about this subject is the use of propaganda (these days you might call it marketing). Not strictly a tool of fascism, but the Nazis excelled in this area. The film Triumph of the Will often freaks me out, because the Woodstock film seems quite similar in a weird way (hence David Bowie's Diamond Dogs album)...Triumph of the Will

Another aspect of Hitler is a sense of a preoccupation with aesthetics. Nazi uniforms, monuments, architecture and art seem to be major concerns for Hitler...even starting with the extermination of physically and mentally challenged people seems almost an aesthetic consideration.

Aesthetics

Degenerate art
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Re: Adolf Hitler & Nazism.

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Hitler's painting seem to give a bit of that aestheticism away. His paintings, rather stolidly, show an unmolested and undisturbed Germanic landscape captured with a sense of realism and proportion when many other European artists were shedding theirs. What is odd is how he coupled that later with eugenics, a sense of 'tidying up' whilst preserving the past. In a sense his paintings are quite tacky and inoffensive; the sort of stuff old people decorate their retirement homes with. Even stranger that same sense of eugenics started to get written into the streamlining of the era so that even basic kitchen appliances started to take on a 'perfect' and less wind-resistant outline to suit the sense of improvement that was going on at the time. Google the American Eugenics Society and find out when they closed their doors for the last time, you will be startled how a psuedo-scientific biotruth was allowed so much credence for so long.

As for propaganda, the Nazis did well at that as well. Goebbels once flew into a rage because a photo was published in a paper showing the recording process behind a radio broadcast. To him the idea of information coming from an electrical device in your home unchallenged was a strong one, and he felt that revealing the clunky mechanical processes behind the burgeoning radio propaganda campaign was a personal slight on the part of the journalists.
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Re: Adolf Hitler & Nazism.

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Anybody ever read Mein Kampf?
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Re: Adolf Hitler & Nazism.

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cwta eugene wrote:Anybody ever read Mein Kampf?

I borrowed a copy from a teacher once and probably read about 100 pages before I got bored. I don't recall anything too disturbing in what I read per se (just disturbing to actually hold the book). I think it starts out about his love for the place he was born and how unfair the world was toward Germany after the First World War. But, it was years ago.
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Re: Adolf Hitler & Nazism.

Post by rememberaday »

I am reading Mein Kampf. I've read about 170 pages, till the part where he speaks about the Kaiser "shaking hands" with the Jews and Marxism during the First World War. It's been a hard but rewarding read. It's not all deranged or paranoic as they make you believe it. Many interesting ideas, for sure.

I find Hitler's life to be very sad. He had a horrible childhood, with an abusive, alcoholic, Autrian patriotic, and civil servant of a father at one end and a religious, doting mother at the other. Being constantly tortured and then loved must have left the young Adolf very, very confused. Plus, it did not help that he was a naturally sensitive/introverted loner (and thus unpopular in school as well).

What I really found intriguing when I was doing a Hitler project (which sparked my interest in his life and ideas, for until then I had the usual "Hitler was evil, I rest my case" mentality) was one Eduord Bloch, Hitler's childhood family doctor. Bloch was perhaps the only Jew whom Hitler actually had a fondness for, and who had Hitler's protection from the Gestapo and was allowed to emigrate to the USA. In fact, Hitler even supposedly called Bloch an edeljude! Bloch has some interesting points about Hitler's early life. ->Link to Edourd Bloch's interview in 1945 after the War

Continuing the tale of Hitler's childhood, Hitler had a very close attachment to his mother. The deaths of his brother and father in 1900 and 1903 were bad enough, but when his mother died of cancer in 1907 (just two months after Hitler's lifelong dream of painting was shattered after he failed his exam) he must have been heartbroken. So when he was at his mother's funeral on Christmas eve, he must already started harbouring his future views.

That said, I don't think he actually started believing in his future ideologies until he became a homeless, unemployed good-for-nothing in Vienna. The harsh lifestyle inevitably gave birth to his survivalist attitude, his lack of empathy and hatred for pacifism. He evidently "hardened", so much that he went from being sensitive to merciless.

The First World War was another profound experience for him. Hearing the news of Germany's surrender when he was blinded by mustard gas must have disturbed him. Also, the extensive mustard gas and chloroform treatments must have reminded him of his mother's illness. It was at this point that his previous stored self-hate might have fully transformed into hatred towards homosexuals, Jews, the Kaiser, politicians, ie. all those who were either weak or had riches which they did not "deserve".

So in order to compensate for his losses, he began to (unfortunately for millions of people) formulate his ideas, and remake a world set to his own thoughts and wants. Even in his speeches and Mein Kampf, you can see he tries to portray himself as an important world-figure; in his discrimination of the Jews, he is essentially creating the world where perfection is determined by his own will. So is this urge to modify the world the common quality in dictators?

I find The Wall to be inspired by Hitler's life just as much as it was by Syd's and Roger's.
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Re: Adolf Hitler & Nazism.

Post by cwta eugene »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr5cjyok ... ata_player

I'm sure many of you have seen the above video. Please chime in with your thoughts on whether Nazism was a result of otherwise good people being blinded by their obedience to authoritative figures?
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Re: Adolf Hitler & Nazism.

Post by GilmourGirl »

cwta eugene wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr5cjyok ... ata_player

I'm sure many of you have seen the above video. Please chime in with your thoughts on whether Nazism was a result of otherwise good people being blinded by their obedience to authoritative figures?

Of course. The same thing is happening here in America as we speak.
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Re: Adolf Hitler & Nazism.

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cwta eugene wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr5cjyok ... ata_player

I'm sure many of you have seen the above video. Please chime in with your thoughts on whether Nazism was a result of otherwise good people being blinded by their obedience to authoritative figures?
Not really. Many people were welcome to the thought of fascist rule- Germany was then a "democracy" crippled by inflation, unemployment, humiliation and the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. As such, Hitler's glorious (sometimes too glorious) promises of giving the German volk their due appealed to the public. Of course I do not mean that Nazis were favoured by almost everyone; Hitler certainly eliminated most of the opposition before they could pose any big problems. And one must also notice that Hitler's rise to the power of Chancellor was very much a matter of grasping the opportunity which came. The Reichstag fire is a classic example of how the Nazis were game to play dirty to establish and impose their rule.

I can't really judge the situation in America since I'm on the other side of the pool as my breakfast puts it, but I think it has something to do with the misinterpretation of the meaning of democracy. I think people (even over here in India) have become all too complacent when it comes to democracy, thus confusing it with freedom, not understanding that freedom once gained must be sustained. The truth is, one must never forget the power of the public. Even in systems like Fascism, the Dictator is not all powerful, and has to sucuumb to the public's view. This is proved by the fact that the Holocaust was shrouded in secrecy, after the German public's reluctance to the Euthanasia program (Here's another link .

Of course, there are few people in a state who are actually so selfless and brave so as to actually overturn the dictator's repression, so the majority of the folks just remain supressed and bitch about it. Which is why men like Hitler take advantage of the fact and cross the limit when it comes to dictatorship.

This video is not related to whatever I wrote, but it's interesting all the same:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcUeS3e1VNU
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Re: Adolf Hitler & Nazism.

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cwta eugene wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr5cjyok ... ata_player

I'm sure many of you have seen the above video. Please chime in with your thoughts on whether Nazism was a result of otherwise good people being blinded by their obedience to authoritative figures?
That's an interesting video, but I find that explanation too reductive, and too reminiscent of Adorno's ludicrious thesis, The Authoritarian Personality.

Up until 1933, the NSDAP was a counter-cultural opposition movement with no serious authority over anyone outside of its own ranks. It did not begin to assert its authority on a national level until after the second election in 1933, and even then, it was not without opposition (thousands of people left the country and campaigned from outside; those who remained to dissent from within were sent to labour camps). One of the main reasons there was no widespead violent resistance is that the National Socialist government was quite successful in solving Germany's problems. They did bring an end to the economic crisis, and almost managed to attain full employment only a matter of years after millions of people were out of work with no prospects. Their economy might have been too centered around the military to sustain itself in the long term (like the "military-industrial complex" in America), but the standard of living clearly improved for most people from 1933 up until the vile Allied firebombings.

I'm sure there were large numbers of politically indifferent people -- non-voters and DNVP supporters, for instance -- who were prepared to go along with the new government because of their indifference, much as people in Britain were happy to live off the fruits of the British Empire for so long, without thinking about the effect it had on the people being exploited. There were all sorts of reasons for their NSDAP's victory against the Communists and Social-Democrats, though, beyond mere subservience to authority: the economic crisis, the national embarrassment caused by the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles, the widespread popularity of 'völkisch' nationalism within Germany, cultural decline, social disorder, fear of Soviet Socialism (a fear which has been retrospectively vindicated by the GDR), hostility towards modernism, and a desire to live in a more ordered society. Maybe the Protestant work ethic had something to do with it! Germany was the home of Martin Luther, after all (himself one of the most famous anti-Jewish writers).

The government of the Weimar Republic's incompetence and lack of authority was probably one of the reasons that the hyper-authoritarian NSDAP and KPD parties ended up sharing more than 50% of the vote between them, during the elections in 1932 and 1933. If the KPD had been elected instead of the NSDAP, they would certainly have done the same thing to their political opposition, just as their Marxist-Leninist brothers had already done in the Soviet Union (in effect, the KPD did silence political dissidents after taking power in the GDR -- the Stasi was much worse than the Gestapo in some respects, and certainly more effective). People usually turn to the so-called "extreme" ends of the political spectrum when there is a substantial crisis which the current government is incapable of dealing with, and when the established political opposition is too impotent to offer a serious alternative.

Look at Greece, where SYRIZA ("far-left") and Golden Dawn ("far-right") now share well over half of the public vote between them; or Spain, where the Catalan and Basque independence movements are on the verge of seceding from Madrid. Youth unemployment in both of those countries has now exceeded 55%, and there are violent political protests on the streets of both countries every single day. Their situations are both distinct from the Weimar Republic, but there are obvious and substantial parallels. Which one will be the first to smash the pretentious neoliberal dreams of the European Union? I'm betting on Greece, but for all I know, the Italians could do it in retaliation against the overthrow of their government and its replacement with a cabinet of unelected bEUreaucrats and Goldman-Sachs bankers (i.e. Mario Monti).
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Re: Adolf Hitler & Nazism.

Post by rememberaday »

Hitler did try to establish a Nazi government forcefully in 1924, when he, inspired by Benito Mussolini's March to Rome, initiated a coup in a beer hall, for which he was imprisoned. It was after this that he started playing an opportunistic game, continously agitating and gaining the people's support, until the chance finally came in 1933.

His speech at Munich in 1922 is fantastic! Though no footage exists, you can by imagination alone understand that it was filled with passion and hysteria! Munich Speech
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Re: Adolf Hitler & Nazism.

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An interesting link I found a few days ago: Linky-Dinky

I score 4.93333333 = you may want to practice things with your left hand (I am left-handed btw) :D :lol:

But what I'm more concerned about is - don't any of you find the test pretty redundant? I mean, it's structured with questions that automatically assume you are a dictator and is designed to ask and in this way, expose, the flaws of totalitarianism. More of the propoganda poop.

Are authoritarians rebellious? I say yes, they are rebellious when they are not in charge. Their entire goal is to get others submit to their will (Hey! sounds like me!). This test actually confused me as to what an authoritarian personality actually is - does it mean that authoritarians usually support already existing norms? Then Hitler was NOT authoritarian, as he readily did away with alcohol and smoking. It's getting me all confused really.

Can anyone clear this mess?
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Re: Adolf Hitler & Nazism.

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Do, do, bear with me for posting again, but I just was reading some old posts when I came across a brilliant post by Alan:
Alan wrote:People, sometimes but not always Americans, who get either readily hungup or obsessed about the Nazis. Case in point, Blue Oyster Cult released Secret Treaties and were accused of being Nazis. Brian Ferry claimed the Nazis were snappy dressers, or had some sort of sophistication about them, and got it in the neck. Its the 21st Century. I don't think we can honestly learn from the mistakes of WW2 as long as we have this childish fixation with the Nazis. We are told from an early age that they were bad, that they killed millions of people, but there is no further analysis allowed. As long as you state simply and clearly that they were terrible you win the game. Its annoying as I feel one cannot frankly discuss WW2 without having to accept that the Dambusters were courageous 'chaps' who did what they had to do to save humanity, whilst the legendary German tank captain Michael Wittmann is not given such an honour. I watched two documentaries about Wittmann, one by amateur tank enthusiasts from Britain and one from a history channel in America. The American documentary was quick to point out the supposedly poor design of German tanks and that Wittmann was purely lucky to have achieved anything, whilst the British tank commanders were geniuses. The amateur documentary was far less anti-German in its stance.


How many times do you see clips of Hitler shouting away on the TV with the audio muted or severely reduced and a narrator talking over the top. Hitler is never translated, he is reduced to this image of a man raging away in silence. This strange attitude towards him persists in American and UK documentaries on WW2 to this day. It is a childish attitude that removes the right to think freely on the subject of the Nazis. You have to view Hitler as a deranged man not worthy of air time, instead of point out the flaws in what he might actually be saying or (even worse) point out why the Nazis proved so successful in a non-appologetic manner.

It would also be nice if the holocaust was associated with the extermination of a great many peoples such as gypsies, coloured people, homosexuals and the mentally ill, not just the jews. If you believe that Israel gets some leverage from the UK and US because of the Jewish death toll from the holocaust then it is shabby that the jewish community has monopolised the whole ordeal whereby the other people killed are scarcely mentioned.
My thoughts exactly. I've always feeling that one is never taught about the Second World War properly in the schools - it's more like "Here's how we brainwash you in thinking Hitler and co. were the ultimate evil."

I'll always admire Hitler for violating the Versailles treaties like they were worthless muck. If politicians only had that sort of fighting spirit, the world would be different for better or worse.
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Re: Adolf Hitler & Nazism.

Post by moodyblue »

Without reading most of the posts here. The reference to Muslims is an interesting one.
Whilst I have a huge problem with Islam, I don't have a problem with your 'average' muslim but many of the views expresssed by some Muslims I don't actually see any clear water between those and the worse elements of Nazism.
I firmly believe that Islam is seeking to dominate not by your 'average' muslim but by the so called 'Islamists' who are at present, taking advantage of the present European open door policy on letting as many ground troops through it's doors from the religion of Islam.
There is little doubt in my mind that Islam through demography will one day become the dominating culture within Europe and many are unaware of the consequences of this and many haven't the vision to even entertain what it might all mean.
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Re: Adolf Hitler & Nazism.

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moodyblue wrote: 1.Whilst I have a huge problem with Islam, I don't have a problem with your 'average' muslim but many of the views expresssed by some Muslims I don't actually see any clear water between those and the worse elements of Nazism.

2. There is little doubt in my mind that Islam through demography will one day become the dominating culture within Europe and many are unaware of the consequences of this and many haven't the vision to even entertain what it might all
mean.
1. So are you trying to imply that Islam and Nazism share common evils? If so, please inform me what that is. Islam and Nazism are two separate ideologies to me. In fact, I feel the "Islamists are Nazis" myth is just based on irrational emotions, without any concrete facts to support the theory.

2. What do you mean? I didn't quite get it. Do YOU have any vision of what it might mean?

****************************************************************
Another very, very interesting link about Herr Adolf : Mossy is not Hitler

It's fascinating to delve deep into Hitler's life. In fact, if one studies it carefully (I can't say all elements of his life as I perceive may be accurate, but I try to get it from non Nazi and non-anti-Nazi sources, if that's possible :o ), it's shocking to see what deluded patterns he tried to live his life on. His mother's death shattered him, obviously; I guess it has probably something to do with that, Hitler somewhat being either totally indiferrent or totally attached to women (Stehphanie Isak, Geli Raubel, Eva Braun were the women in his life) and his repeated suicidal emotions point to a severely depressed man. The man had a logic based purely on emotions. It's amazing to even wonder he, a soldier-tramp nobody, could muster the support of an entire nation and turn it into a superpower that threatened world peace.

Let's talk of pro-Jew Nazis! 8)
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Re: Adolf Hitler & Nazism.

Post by my breakfast. »

This thread seems to be taking a weird course. :?

The more I think about it the more I don't think we can learn anything much about the rise of the Nazis that would prevent it happening again, and I don't mean that in a typical stoner "we live in a police state man" sort of way...

I think if you look at the rise of the Nazis you see a few interesting points, the role of propaganda and Hitler's possible mental health issues (autism? the guy sure hated intimacy) that actually gave him a good chance as a leader because nobody wanted to be close to him but he also had a transcendental air about him that somehow inspired many.

However at the end of the day you just see desperation and mutual deferred responsibility when you look at it. :?